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Scientology Critic Arrested After 6 Years
destinyland writes "Friday police arrested 64-year-old Keith Henson. In 2000 after picketing a Scientology complex, he was arrested as a threat because of a joke Usenet post about "Tom Cruise Missiles." He fled to Canada after being found guilty of "interfering" with a religion, and spent the next 6 years living as a fugitive. Besides being a digital encryption and free speech advocate, he's one of the original Burr-Brown/Texas Instruments researchers and a co-founder of the Space Colony movement."
That, at the end of the day, Scientology will be laughed out of court, and this guy set free. Think SCO vs IBM.
One can dream, of course. Scientology is well-known for legally attacking any and all critics. They are the biggest bullies you have ever heard of, even worse than most Fundamentalists.
Personally, I've only become aware of this case via this article. If all he did was post that on a forum to cause all this trouble with Scientology, I sure feel sorry for him. But if a California court found him guilty of any wrong, then I think he should serve his time. I don't think "interfering with a church" should constitute a long sentence though. I feel I am missing a large part of the story here or that this article was written omitting tactics Mr. Henson used agains Scientology. I can't judge until all the facts are in but I am aware that people with a lot of money can make strange charges stick.
If you want to support Keith Henson, there is a donation fund set up for his defense fees.
I personally hate Scientology but they are a religion and must be respected as one. If they can convince chumps to give them money, there's nothing I can do to stop that.
My work here is dung.
I didn't know that interfering with a religion was a crime. Could any lawyers provide some details about this law and what constitutes breaking it?
Thanks.
Isn't satire and other kinds of humor covered under the first amendment? and Wow how are you not supposed to make fun of scientology...it's such an easy target...all that stuff about Xenu and aliens being sent here 75 million years ago...it's a humorist's dream
In a world of acronyms, the words are the real victims.
Having dealt with Mr. Hanson in the past few years, he has my earnest hope that he gets better advice this time 'round, and LISTENS to it. No small part of this tragedy comes from Keith's own choices.
Odd thing about that jury, since the case, no one has been able to verify that these people actually exist.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Freedom of religion is simply a horrible concept. People should have freedom of belief, and freedom of expression. Whether or not what you choose to believe in or advocate is called a religion by anyone should be irrelevant.
Similarly, the reasonable practice of religion (for example, by gathering for collective worship) is generally covered by other established freedoms, such as movement and association.
This being the case, the expression "freedom of religion" is usually used as an excuse, an implicit claim to more rights than someone else has, or to have one's own wishes valued more highly than another's. Following a certain religion does not earn you those rights, any more than someone following a different religion (or no religion) has those rights at your expense.
One can readily extend this argument to anti-discrimination legislation. Why should it be necessary to prohibit discrimination on explicit criteria? If something is important enough to protect in this way, why not simply require that any decision be made based only on information relevant to the matter at hand?
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
The 12 people on the jury never got to hear Keith's defense. Basically, he was prohibited from even telling them why he was picketing. That so-called "trial" was an absolute farce.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Its unfortunate that Keith has finally been arrested. While he was in Canada, I worked closely with him on a few R&D projects. He was a good guy who always had an interesting story to tell. He fought very hard to get political refugee status from the Canadian Gov't while he was here, and was eventually denied after about a 3 year struggle. He left on his own terms, returning to the US in his own time, claiming that if he was escorted properly across the border, he would be a dead man.
In all the time that Keith spent in Canada, he was never once left alone by the cult of Scientology. I was involved with one incident with a P.I. that was following him, and there were numerous other occasions that I had heard about from him.
He was a good friend, always willing to stick his head out for ya. I sure do miss him now, and sincerely hope that nothing terrible happens to him now that he's been arrested.
Thomas A. Knight
Author of The Time Weaver
Has the infiltration of scientologists risen to the level of the infiltration of Christians, in your estimation?
Or is there some reason you would present to support the idea that the infiltration of one religion is of more concern than of another?
As far as I can see, the problems for society and its citizens are similar in nature, if not in scope, with regard to any religious person who, in your words, "infiltrates" the justice system. But I am curious as to your take on the matter.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
I'm not in the least contesting the idea that Scientologists aren't loony to their very core; I'm just curious why you seem to think that Scientologists are worse than Christians somehow. Most of the differences I can think of leave the Christians as the worse offenders.
Two points.
1) You're probably unaware of the offenses of Scientologists. They're relatively obscure.
2) There are a LOT more Christians and the religion has had a LOT longer time to have offenses committed in its name.
Combining these two means that you don't really have a good concept of the relative densities of craziness in the two religions. The larger a population is, the greater the violent fringe that can exist. Every major religion in existence has had its share of bloodshed, but that's not the fault of religion per se so much as the natural human tendency to form groups and to think less of people not in your group. Since Christianity is larger and more established, it has a greater capacity to harbor a lunatic fringe. That does not reflect necessarily on the relative merits of the core beliefs of the two faiths.
Don't recall any Scientologists blowing up any abortion clinics, for instance, nor can I think of them trying to tell me, a non-believer - or worse, getting a law put in place that coerces me - such that I can't marry two willing people.
While there isn't any solid evidence of murders committed in the name of Scientology, there is a long history of intimidation, harassment, and property damage in defense of the religion. (There is evidence for negligent death, but no first-degree murder.) The religion is relatively young, so it's hard to say whether that's a matter of time or not.
However, there is a marked difference in the canonical stance on violence towards outsiders between mainstream Christianity and mainstream Scientology. Scientology views those who interfere with Scientology to be fair game. That is to say that there's no moral laws protecting the enemies of Scientology and no sanction of any activities taken to harm them. Christianity, at its core, states that you should love your enemy. Few Christians are capable of holding themselves to that standard, but the difference in what you're supposed to do is marked.
As for attempting to force their morality on others, Scientology simply hasn't had the power to enforce its views on outsiders due to a lack of critical mass. What makes you think they'd be different from any other segment of society bound by a common code of behavior?
They have, however, lobbied for broad government powers to enforce copyright because they protect their inner secrets with copyright law and have been responsible for a number of DMCA takedown notices. They were notable advocates for the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act and the DMCA itself.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Yes,
I honestly believe that if I don't believe in god then it won't bother with me.
We are not talking about something physical here. It's not like I'm saying if I don't believe in mosquitoes then they won't bother me. Remember, we are talking about something of which there is not one scrap of evidence. The bible was written BY men, FOR men, to CONTROL (wo)men.
I really do have a hard time believing that "god" chose to manifest itself only during a few years like 2000 years ago. Something change between then and now? People are still people. Only technology has changed. The techonology we have now allows us to explain alot of the stuff that people of 2000 years ago didn't understand, hence they needed to look elsewhere for an explination.
The bible is A good book. Not THE good book. It makes for some interesting reading, as nearly any collection of short stories does if you are interested in the genere of the collection.
I am not saying that there aren't some good morals to be learned from the bible, but then again, there are alot of good things to learn from the Brothers Grimm as well.
If there IS a god, and it chose to show itself to a few thousand people a couple of thousand years ago, then I believe that the choice has already been made. Obviously "modern" man isn't worth the trouble to this "god".
If I die, and there DOES turn out to be a hell, I would welcome it, because it means that my conciousness lives on. The only thing that I fear about death is the cessation of concious thought. The thought that my memories, achievements, ideas, etc... just *poof* dissappear bothers the heck out of me.
I will not, however, entertain any notion that after death, my conciousness "lives on". I call BS.
Better than religion: Let's figure out a way to stop people from dying.
"Freedom in the USA is not the ability to do what you want. It is the ability to stop others from doing what THEY want"